Guanche DNA

berun

berun

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From Secher's blog commenting the paper Genetic studies on the prehispanic population buried in Punta Azul cave (El Hierro, Canary Islands), the testing of mtDNA of 56 individuals buried in the site gave 56 H1; the Y DNA of 15 males from there was 7 R1b-M269 and 7 E-M81 (plus an E-M33). From an autosomal point, such people was related to Moroccan Berbers.

The confirmation of pre-hispanic R1b gives credit to the theories pointing to the Phoenicians as the possible cause of the colonization of the islands, as they would have carried there slaves from Mauritania and Tartessos to profit the natural resources of the island. The guanches displayed a diverse culture by using a lybico-berber alphabet (but some Latin and Punic inscriptions have been found there), their language was related to Amazigh, mummification was known, the people did sacrifices of children in tophets à la Punique, they were herders (goats and sheeps)... and the human presence in the islands coincides with the Phoenician colonization of North Africa and South Spain, and with the age of their explorations (Hanno, Hamilco).

Speaking about physical traits, the Guanches of North Tenerife were white and with blond women.
 
Interesting. According to wiki

Archaeology suggests that the original settlers arrived by sea, importing domestic animals such as goats, sheep, pigs and dogs and cereals such as wheat, barley and lentils. They also brought with them a set of well-defined socio-cultural practices that seem to have originated and been in use for a long period of time elsewhere.

Today, archaeological and ethnographic studies have led most scholars to accept the view that the pre-colonial population of the Canaries shared common origins with North African Berber tribes from the Atlas Mountains region who began to arrive in the Canaries by sea around 1000 BCE or earlier. However, there is no archaeological or historical evidence to prove that either the Berber tribes of the Atlas Mountains or the Canarian pre-colonial population had knowledge or made use of navigation techniques.[4] The peak of Tenerife is visible from the African coast on the very clearest of days, but the currents around the islands tend to lead the boats southwest and west, past the archipelago and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Most scholars would now agree that the earliest reliable dates related to permanent human occupation can be traced back to about 1000 BCE, but different absolute dating technologies such as carbon-14 and thermoluminescence have provided variable results. Inadequate methodologies and an insufficient number of absolute datings carried out throughout the archipelago have yielded inconsistencies and information gaps.

Studies of precolonial Canarian society illustrate both agricultural and pastoral ways of life in the Canaries
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands_in_pre-colonial_times
 
berun said:
From Secher's blog commenting the paper Genetic studies on the prehispanic population buried in Punta Azul cave (El Hierro, Canary Islands), the testing of mtDNA of 56 individuals buried in the site gave 56 H1; the Y DNA of 15 males from there was 7 R1b-M269 and 7 E-M81 (plus an E-M33). From an autosomal point, such people was related to Moroccan Berbers.

The confirmation of pre-hispanic R1b gives credit to the theories pointing to the Phoenicians as the possible cause of the colonization of the islands, as they would have carried there slaves from Mauritania and Tartessos to profit the natural resources of the island. The guanches displayed a diverse culture by using a lybico-berber alphabet (but some Latin and Punic inscriptions have been found there), their language was related to Amazigh, mummification was known, the people did sacrifices of children in tophets à la Punique, they were herders (goats and sheeps)... and the human presence in the islands coincides with the Phoenician colonization of North Africa and South Spain, and with the age of their explorations (Hanno, Hamilco).

Speaking about physical traits, the Guanches of North Tenerife were white and with blond women.
Click to expand...

Interesting... But I thought that, if the 7 R-M269 people were from Iberia, wouldn't they display a more Iberian-like autosomal profile?

The Age of sample is known?
 
The samples are dated to the XII Century, so some two centuries before the arrival of the Spanish.

For the case of the autosomal it's a good point; maybe the deported (?) people was already admixed (per example in Mediterranean Andalusia there was a population named Lybiophoenician by Strabo).
 
berun said:
The samples are dated to the XII Century, so some two centuries before the arrival of the Spanish.

For the case of the autosomal it's a good point; maybe the deported (?) people was already admixed (per example in Mediterranean Andalusia there was a population named Lybiophoenician by Strabo).
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Until the XII century many people from many ethnicities could have reached the islands... Also Italic peoples, Nuragic peoples, Etruscans, Celts pirates, and many other.
 
The +80% blood type O frequency amongst Guanches indicates strong relationship to Berbers and possibly Basques as "they once were".
 
Not so easy. Carthaginians killed whichever people tried to go beyond the Hercules Pillars. IIRC Greeks were not conscious of such islands and it was necessary to crash the Carthaginian empire to allow Romans some mild knowledge about the Fortunates.
 
berun said:
Not so easy. Carthaginians killed whichever people tried to go beyond the Hercules Pillars. IIRC Greeks were not conscious of such islands and it was necessary to crash the Carthaginian empire to allow Romans some mild knowledge about the Fortunates.
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Sure, but Carthaginians didn't exist anymore in the X century A.D. or also in the I century A.D. After the fall of Carthago, then many people could reach the archipelago... think about the great number of pirates in the Mediterranean and the effort the Romans did to erase that problem and, of course, the rebirth of the piracy after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Those people could also be brought from Iberia by Moors.
 
After the fall of the Roman Empire there are no more direct references to the islands till the Genoese Lanceloto Malocello, who reached Lanzarote in 1312; from there on many European piratical raids and actions to conquer the islands were taken; in fact in the Catalan Atlas of 1375 the islands appear with their actual names... The Hispanic Moors had not a better knowledge before, the geographer Al Idriss explains that some sailors from Lisbone departed in the XII century to explore the Ocean, after many weeks sailing they found filthy waters and decided to come back... but the winds delivered them into an unkown peopled island; the people there captured the sailors and with the eyes bandaged they were left in a beach of Morocco after sailing some three days.
 
berun said:
After the fall of the Roman Empire there are no more direct references to the islands till the Genoese Lanceloto Malocello, who reached Lanzarote in 1312; from there on many European piratical raids and actions to conquer the islands were taken; in fact in the Catalan Atlas of 1375 the islands appear with their actual names... The Hispanic Moors had not a better knowledge before, the geographer Al Idriss explains that some sailors from Lisbone departed in the XII century to explore the Ocean, after many weeks sailing they found filthy waters and decided to come back... but the winds delivered them into an unkown peopled island; the people there captured the sailors and with the eyes bandaged they were left in a beach of Morocco after sailing some three days.
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Probably... we don't know: many islands were used as pieds-?-terre by pirates in centuries... many of these weren't know by the official istitutions.
 
Mike Dammann said:
The +80% blood type O frequency amongst Guanches indicates strong relationship to Berbers and possibly Basques as "they once were".
Click to expand...

I don't think blood type could tell who knows what about ancestry...
 
Brennos said:
I don't think blood type could tell who knows what about ancestry...
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... and I think you are thinking within a box. Aside from native American tribes, which group has 80+% of type O blood?
 
Mike Dammann said:
... and I think you are thinking within a box. Aside from native American tribes, which group has 80+% of type O blood?
Click to expand...

No problem for me... at least, in a box I can't hear certain things.
 
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